


Poussette

by spacehopper



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dancing, M/M, Politics, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:11:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17695622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: He knows Izunia is using him. Yet what choice does he have, but to play the game?





	Poussette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VenatorNoctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenatorNoctis/gifts).



When Chancellor Izunia holds out a hand, Ravus cannot help but recoil. The offer is a challenge, the extended hand a sword, ready for the cut, or the parry. As much as it pains him to admit, he knows in this, he is outmatched. Izunia has greater power, influence, and knowledge than him. Despite his eccentricities, and his mysterious origin, he may even hold more power than Aldercapt himself. 

And that’s why Ravus takes his hand.

“Ah, I’m glad you didn’t refuse,” Izunia says, as he guides Ravus onto the dance floor with surprising grace. “It would be so awkward, wouldn’t it? If the court thought there was any discord between us. After all, there are many who still look for rebellion from Tenebrae.” 

Ravus is not the politician Izunia is, not used to courtly deception and the fluttering gestures that conceal secrets more deadly than knives. So he stiffens, and Izunia’s grin widens in a response. There would have been talk if he’d refused, and yet Ravus still wishes he’d done it. What good could come of this, after all? But he’s played his hand. All that’s left is to lay down the bet, and hope that perhaps he can pry some small secret from Izunia’s grasp.

“I’m surprised at your offer. You’ve never shown much interest before.” Ravus follows the steps with a swordsman’s grace, and he feels something similar in Izunia. He has never seen Izunia fight, and yet there is a power in his arms. A power Ravus, despite himself, wishes to know. 

His mother always said he was reckless. But then she was much the same in her youth. And Lunafreya as well, which worries him more than anything. 

“A mistake, I’m sure.” Izunia’s smile pretends kindness, but Ravus knows cruelty when he sees it, poison coating a silver tongue. “You’ve proved yourself quite capable, haven’t you? Rising through the ranks.”

A risk, but he has to take it. Izunia’s eyes are bright and inscrutable, and Ravis is reminded of the magitek soldiers, an inhuman malevolence chained for a purpose. Or perhaps not chained at all, but merely biding its time. “But I could rise farther.”

“Could you, now? But where is there to rise but—” Izunia spins him with far more elegance than Ravus could’ve managed, and he’s reluctantly impressed as he’s pulled closer, and Izunia murmuers in his ear. “—to Glauca’s position.” 

As they make a final sweep around the dance floor, they draw murmurs and wandering gazes. Ravus ignores them. He has grown accustomed to the mutters and the stares, and has long since discarded them as having any value. Instead he focused on Izunia as they each dance the final steps. Waiting. Knowing there is more, that there must be, that Izunia can not only be toying with him. What would be the purpose?

His patience is rewarded. The music ends, and Izunia’s hand tightens on his sleeve before Ravus can pull away, holding long enough to whisper, “Do meet me later. I’d so love to continue our dance.” A card is slipped into Ravus’s sleeve, and the Chancellor saunters off. 

Ravus does not read the card, simply moves it to a pocket. Across the dance floor, Lunafreya watches him. She knows what he is doing, the generalities if not the details, and he can tell she thinks it foolish. But then she is hardly one to judge foolish plans or vain hopes. 

He knows Izunia is using him. Yet what choice does he have, but to play the game?

*

The meeting location is unexpected. Not some drafty hallway or concealed passage, but a well-appointed sitting room, if one clearly hastily cleaned after long disuse. Not the Chancellor’s own quarters, but ones that had at least once belonged to someone important. It sets Ravus’s nerves alight, but he refuses to give in, refuses to show the weakness and the fear Izunia almost certainly desires. Instead he sits on a chair. And waits. 

An hour passes, maybe more, and Ravus begins to wonder if there truly is no purpose to this game. If all Izunia wanted was to leave him here, to show him how worthless he truly is. If that is the case, there is little Ravus can do. He might be hot-headed, but despite what Lunafreya might think, he is no fool. Moving against the Chancellor would only result in his death, when he still has so little power of his own.

And so when he finally stands to leave, his fury is banked, waiting for the chance to show Izunia, like he’ll show the rest, that he is no tamed wolf, no dog to be called to heel. It is then, of course, that the door finally opens, and Izunia sweeps inside.

His clothing is surprisingly tame, considering his usual ensemble. The strange hat abandoned, and the coat as well. A modest black shirt, tightly fitted, shows off impressive musculature for a man his age, as do the well-cut trousers. Also black, of course. 

“Strange that the Chancellor of Niflheim favors the colors of the Lucian royal house.”

“Oh, is it? I hadn’t noticed. I rather think it suits me, don’t you?” Izunia makes an expansive gesture, drawing the fabric tight over his chest.

Ravus has to admit, it does suit him. Not that it matters, not when they are here for business. Another time, another place, perhaps he’d attempt a dalliance. He has little enough pleasure in his life. But the Chancellor is a dangerous man. 

A dangerous man, holding out his hand.

“I did ask you for another dance,” Izunia says with a coeurline smile, that dangerous spark of electricity emanating from his touch as Ravus takes his hand for the second time that day.

“What game are you playing?” he asks, as Izunia draws him close, guides Ravus to music only he can hear. 

“My dear boy,” Izunia says, and Ravus does not bother to correct him. “Why would you think I’m playing a game?”

Of course. He is toying with Ravus, a cat playing with a mouse, sure of the futility of the mouse’s response. The game is already lost. Or perhaps there was never a game at all. Only a dance, a meeting of hands and bodies. 

And Ravus had always been a better fighter than a courtier. 

The brief flash of surprise as he shoves Izunia against the wall is gratifying. A small victory, but one he savors still, even as Izunia laughs. 

“So you do have some fight after all. Perhaps the blood of the Oracles does run in your veins.” There’s a strange wistfulness as Izunia continues, “I can almost see her in you. Quite diminished, and yet.” He traces a finger down Ravus’s cheek.

The comment must refer to his mother, and Ravus almost asks. But that is what Izunia wants. So instead he presses an arm against Izunia’s throat, and says, “I want command of the army.”

“Hmm, right to the point.” The hand on his cheek drifts down to his waist. “I think I rather like it. But I’m not quite sure why I’d give it to you.”

“Because I am better than Glauca.” It’s a risk, but he hopes, still, that Izunia didn’t approach him without cause, that Izunia wants Glauca gone. “I will do as you ask, within reason.”

“Will you?” Izunia meets his gaze, while Ravus holds steady. Then Izunia laughs, patting him on the cheek, while his other hand tightens on Ravus’s waist. “I think you will. Long enough, at least. And I’ll give you an extra gift. I’ll make sure you get a chance at the Ring of the Lucii.” 

“How?” Ravus says, pressing closer. Well aware of their positions, that despite his force, Izunia holds all the power here. And yet the chance, however slight— 

“Trust me.”

Ravus doesn’t. But the odds were always stacked against him. This chance, the command, the ring. He has to take it.

“What do you want?” 

“Oh, I think you know enough for now.” 

It’s hardly a surprise when Izunia kisses him. And even less of one when Ravus does not pull away.

*

If Luna thought him foolish now, Ravus would be forced to agree. Their deal does not require this, does not require the striping of clothes, of armor, the Chancellor’s teeth digging into his throat, eliciting a cry in this strange and dusty bed, in this abandoned suite of rooms. And yet there is something about him, not just a handsome, powerful, dangerous man, but something more that Ravus cannot deny. And the strangest thing is, Izunia seems to feel the same, oddly tender in the way he cups Ravus’s cheek.

“It’s a pity,” he says, and Ravus almost thinks he means it, just for a moment. 

But then his hands are on Ravus again, none of the elegance of the dance floor, but instead a brutal efficiency. Ravus is not sure which of them started this, who is the player and who is the played. He thinks it must be him, dancing to Izunia’s tune, but he’s no longer sure. No longer sure of anything.

In the end they come together half-clothed and oddly desperate, the inelegant slide of bodies, never to meet this way again, or so he hopes. Not after the eerie gold he sees in Izunia’s eyes, the dark lines painting his face. Again, he’s reminded of the magitek soldiers, but he cannot quite understand why. Izunia is a man, if a powerful one. And yet despite their similar sizes, the strength in Izunia’s hands as he pins Ravus’s wrists above his head is inhuman, even as his eyes fade to amber, and the blackness disappears into the realm of fevered nightmares.

“You know, this isn’t how I imagined the evening going,” Izunia says, as he grinds down against Ravus’s aching cock, not hard enough, the tease. “But I can’t say I object. It’s been—” He groans, then laughs as Ravus bucks against him, furious and frustrated. “—rather a long time for me. And I think you as well.”

There’s a taunt in there, but then everything Izunia says echoes with a faint air of mockery. Ravus is too far gone to care. Not now, at least, tucking it away to mull over in the morning, to remember and regret. For now he simply moans as Izunia bites at his neck again, leaving marks that will assure he wears high collars for days. Possessiveness, or a display of power, it doesn’t matter. Izunia leads, and Ravus has agreed to follow, if only for the moment. 

Again, Izunia grinds down against him, harder now, his own breath catching even as the mocking smile remains firmly in place. It does something to Ravus, to see even the smallest crack in his facade. Enough that when their cocks come together again, he finds himself coming, desperate under Izunia’s iron grip, snarling under the feeling of teeth at his jugular. It is not long after that Izunia follows, as if his age were meaningless. Perhaps it is. 

It is no surprise that Izunia does not linger, and when he departs, it’s with a tip of the hat he did not have before. Strange, but hardly the strangest thing about him. Ravus lies there, still half-clothed. He walked the steps. He tried to change the bets, to tip things in his favor, and he might even have succeeded, in whatever way he could. But perhaps there is no winning this game the Chancellor is playing.

And perhaps there is no game at all. But only a dance, to a tune he cannot hear, to an end he cannot guess.


End file.
